i come across blogs of other mamas who homeschool a bunch of kids
while they also care for a toddler and a baby, maintain a garden, care
for animals, sew and knit clothes for their kids and themselves, cook
from scratch, take beautiful photographs of all the fun things they do,
and seem to always be patient and loving toward their children. unless
they get more hours in the day than i do, i'm just not sure how anyone
is able to do all of that.
it is easy to compare
myself to those people...when i am holding a screaming jobot and love is
grabbing onto my legs and crying because she hurt herself for the
fiftieth time today. or when i lose my patience for a moment because i
am tired of my child constantly throwing everything onto the floor when
she decides she is finished with an activity. or when i wake up at 5:15
am and am still not able to accomplish everything i want to in a day. i
feel like i can barely stay on top of the laundry and meal prep, much
less take care of a garden, animals, and a bunch more kids!
i sometimes believe my own negative thoughts about myself...that i
should be able to accomplish more in a day, that i must not be good at
managing a house and caring for two kids or i would be able to do all of
these things...
i have to remind myself that no one is perfect. and
that i need to be happy with who i am and what i am able to accomplish.
currently, that means that my main priority is meeting the needs of the
two little people i am caring for all day. there are just some other
things that are not possible at this stage of life...and i am learning
to be okay with that. like the fact that until 6 am this morning, our
dining room floor was covered in rice from an activity i did with love
yesterday and i just didn't have a chance to sweep it up until this
morning. or the fact that i have been using store-bought tortillas
instead of homemade ones these days...because most days just getting a
nourishing, healthy meal on the table is a struggle and there is no way i
have time to make tortillas. or the fact that jobot is currently
wearing a disposable diaper because the cloth ones are all dirty.
i am my hardest critic...jeremy often reminds me of that.
i am learning to have grace with myself and i'm trying to be okay with a
less than clean house, and with compromising in some areas. it is just
what has to happen these days.
maybe i am writing this post mostly for myself, or maybe other people need to hear it as well.
i often reference the verse i have posted on the fridge...
"he tends his flock like a shepherd, he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." isaiah 40:11
in the craziness of every day and in this work i have as a full-time mom, i am so thankful that God gently leads me along the way. i pray that i am able to follow each day and that following his lead is more important to me than cleaning the house or doing the dishes.
Grace - I love your honesty on your blog. I'm glad to read that I'm not alone with these same type of struggles. Going from one to two kids was a huge adjustment for me...and I'm still adjusting! Yikes! Thanks for sharing though. Let's get together when I get back to MI.
ReplyDeleteSomething I try to remember is that, mostly, blogs and facebooks and twitters (etc, etc...) are, in a sense, advertisements. MOST people are showing the world MOSTLY their shining, spotless, beautiful moments (probably at least partly subconsciously and probably because they wish their lives were like that all the time -- don't we all!). Not to say that people aren't honest on the internet, but it often seems to me like a lot of blogs and social media musings are constructed via the "first date" approach -- you really only show what you'd like the other person to see and you try to make the best possible impression. Even when someone is describing something heinous, they'll usually make an attempt to be humorous or serenely enlightened. It helps me to keep this in mind so that I don't drive myself crazy either.
ReplyDeleteI love what other people have said already, and I'll just add to it: A lot of "famous" bloggers who have reader subscriptions of oh, say, more than 50 (which are probably friends and family anyway) usually blog for an audience. And usually a business audience (etsy or tutorials for $$ or whatever). So, they HAVE to keep up with the interesting and cutesy little posts about everything from parenting to homemaking to crafts because they want to keep their readers. More readers = a great blog by sponsors' standards = more money for the blogger. Plus, let's remember that as it may LOOK like a person blogs every day about awesome stuff (and consequently makes us think they have more hours in a day and do more fun things), remember that one can blog 10 posts in a day, but set them to "publish" on different dates. So, don't let bloggers get to you (or us). It may just be that a person blogs only on the weekend while their kids are watching a movie and sets them to go online for the rest of the week. See? So tricky. Meanwhile, enjoy your day to day successes and messes, and draw *inspiration* from the bloggers, not a sense of "ought".
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